The Lakers won just 35 games last season, a steady improvement over the 26 games they’d won previously (and the 17 they won the year before), but still very much a team in the throes of a rebuild. Despite the encouraging signs, LA was 12 games out of a playoff spot, and has a roster featuring two players — Brandon Ingram and Lonzo Ball — who are not yet 21, plus youngsters Kyle Kuzma and Julius Randle.

That’s the big issue for the Lakers as they approach a big summer: Are they good enough to bring in top talent? Or, just as important, does it even matter?

If LA is serious about luring LeBron James as a free agent when the process kicks off this weekend, the prevailing wisdom has been that the Lakers need to shake up the roster and bring in credible veteran stars quickly to show James the team can contend with him on board. Surely, James would not pack up and go West to play with guys more than a decade younger than him.

But league executives aren’t so sure the Lakers need to make pre-emptory moves in order to get James to come to LA. One told Sporting News he expects James to sign with the Lakers, even before the team remakes its roster. One report suggested that James has been calling fellow free agents to determine their intentions and figure out which ones might join him should he head to the Lakers.

“That’s the sense you get with him and his people,” the GM said. “They’re doing enough research to suggest that he’s going to be willing to take that plunge and let the roster come together. It’s what happened in Cleveland four years ago.”

That’s the wildcard here. Maybe James does not even need to have a ready-made contender on hand to get him to sign with the Lakers. The feeling among some league executives is that he could sign with LA and then help front-office honchos Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka put the team together from there.

When James signed with Cleveland in 2014, remember, he joined a team whose roster included the likes of Kyrie Irving (then 22), Dion Waiters (22), Anthony Bennett (21) and No. 1 overall pick Andrew Wiggins (19). Wiggins and Bennett were soon dealt for star forward Kevin Love, Waiters was traded during the season for Iman Shumpert and JR Smith, and only Irving remained the entire 2014-15 season.

Of course, the Lakers would be a more attractive destination with, say, Kawhi Leonard or Paul George in town to play with James. If LA can keep some of its young pieces in place while bringing in James and another star-level player, the Lakers will be in position to either see how some combination of Ball/Kuzma/Randle/Ingram works with James, or pull off a trade in the midst of next season.

Make no mistake, it would be the preference of James to know with whom he will play before he signs. But he has shown a willingness before to sign first and let the rest of the pieces come together through the summer and into the following season.

If he keeps that mentality in the coming weeks, it can only be good news for the Lakers.